Making more stay at home parents

“….has actually never worked a day in her life. She’s never really dealt with the kinds of economic issues that a majority of women in this country are facing.” – Hilary Rosen, democratic operative, referring to Ann Romney

Hilary Rosen’s indictment of Ann Romney was quickly – and rightfully so – disavowed by the left, and condemned by the right. However, when we look past the outrage and at Rosen’s words, she is quite correct: A quick scan of her and Mitt’s Wikipedia biographies show that they were both born to affluent households. (I should add, much like most of the presidential candidates of recent decades.)

So, what of it? Far from revealing any hitherto unknown fact about the Romneys, Rosen has done us the favor of revealing a bit about herself and her impression of the electorate. Rosen and her ilk expect – no, require us to look at the economically privileged with contempt and jealousy. We are to believe that anything that they have achieved beyond the middle-class status quo is ill-gotten and the result of somehow leeching off the great unwashed. That many of us aspire to the ability to have one parent at home is anathema to the left, whose entire agenda is based upon the idea that Americans can’t rise above without intervention from the state.

Most Americans don’t look at Romneys dismissively, or contemptuously, we look at Romneys as inspiration to achieve our own success.

Unfortunately that worldview is not very convenient for the Rosens and Obamas of the world. If we are too busy trying to lift ourselves by the boot-straps to spend any time resenting those who have made it, we will have little use waiting for Washington DC to distribute our next helping of government largesse. And then, what use will we have for elitists from the Capitol?

A large number of Americans would love to be able to have a stay at home parent. Many of us make sacrifices in other areas to make that ideal a reality. Ironically, with a true unemployment rate of 12%, Obama’s failed economic policies have created a lot more stay at home parents that wished they could find work. That’s an economic reality that the Democrats don’t want to talk about and the real reason behind the attack on Ann Romney.